Monday, November 28, 2005

Testing the water

I’m not sure what kind of reaction (if any) this post is set to receive but here goes nothing:I started to try and read the Bible again the other day (note the cautious and respectful use of capitalisation). Bust my testes if it doesn’t read like the ramblings of a mad old pensioner. It’s like being inside the mind of a maniac.Granted, it is thousands of years old and was originally written in another language, so the sense of the prose may have suffered with age and translation. I’ll try and soldier on with it for a while though, in the hope that the style will settle down a bit during the first few books. I’m resisting the urge to peek at the end but I’m pretty sure that the devil did it.Needless to say, I already have a fair few questions. I’m sure I can get some sensible answers from my fellow bloggers (no time wasters please) so I intend to frame these questions in the form of posts over the coming weeks. If you yourself have just started to read the Bible, you may wish to skip these posts. Spoilers abound.Now, I know that some of you will be reading this and thinking, “Oh yes, very funny. He’s just trying to be witty and clever and it’s just not working”. I should point out that my apparent irreverence is just that – apparent. I’m not a religious fellow but I am genuinely interested in religious philosophy and I promise that the questions posed in subsequent posts will be serious ones. I will probably publish them in my "Ramblings" blog. Keep an eye out for them. I hope they will appeal to most tastes. Tears, laughter. Something for everybody.Anyway, that’s enough for now. I had better go and strap myself in and resume the teachings of the Good Book. “In the beginning there was hatstand. Bottom fish banana..."

2 comments:

Stuart,Thanks for your comment in my blog. I think that is the first one I have ever had. Am I correct in supposing you are starting off reading from the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis, and that part sounds like a mad old pensioner, like being inside the mind of a maniac? I can see that happening, I guess. I think it may just take some adjusting to a book that is 2000+ years old and from a very different culture. I don't think too much is lost in the translation; it is probably just the cultural gap. I would also say to keep in mind that the Bible, on a human level, is not just one book, but 66, if you have the Protestant canon. If you are willing to accept it, it is also one book with a divine author, but that does not cancel out its nature as a human book, too. If you are reading in the first books of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, I would say to keep in mind that the point of those books (Genesis in particular) is to explain to the nation of Israel how they fit into the larger world. Traditionally, Moses was believed to be the author, and he was probably at least somehow involved in its composition about 1400 B.C. or later. Scholars disagree about the author and date, but I think the text presents itself as an account of Israel's origins. Thus it tells a little about the overall prehistory of the world (chapters 1-11), but a lot about the patriarchs, the ancestors of the nation, and how they came to be a nation: how they became numerous, and how they came to the land they (are about to-?) inhabit. Sorry to ramble on and on. Thanks for your thoughts.

Where is your home? Am I correct in thinking the Channel Islands are between Great Britain and Ireland?Later on,Drebro

Thanks for your comments. Much appreciated. I am about to post some questions on my other blog - Ramblings. There is a link to it on this blog. Maybe you could comment on those too?

My home is Guernsey in the Channel Islands. They are situated between Britain and France. They were originally part of the Dukedom of Normandy in 1066 when William the Conqueror defeated England. However at the time of the Magna Carta in 1215 when King John lost Normandy to Phillip II of France the islands remained loyal to England and remain a dependancy of the British Crown to this day, although we do have our own independant system of government called the States of Guernsey.